Poltergeist
by ninemelodies
Summary: He had to admit, the rag-tag family he and the other graveyard ghosts had built wasn't so bad.


It was cold. So very, very cold. The kind of cold that made your fingers and toes numb and froze the air as it entered your lungs. Demyx had already lost feeling in most of his extremities. The thin rags he was wearing did little to protect him from the bitter, biting cold. He knew he was going to die here if he didn't get help. A light in the distance caught his attention and he began heading towards int. Hope warmed him for a moment before he realized that the light he saw had just been a trick, a hallucination brought on by the cold. He repressed the urge to cry as he continued on, deeper and deeper into what appeared to be a forest.

Finally, the cold became too much and he sat against a tree. There he died, curled up as small he could be. There his body remained, untouched and left to decay over a century. Nobody ever came to look for him, but he was oddly at peace with that. Thinking back on it all now, as a ghost, he realized that he shouldn't have expected any other outcome. He ran away because he knew his "family" wouldn't care enough to try and find him.

Demyx sighed as he hovered over a tombstone. Even though he was okay with not being found, thinking about his death always upset him, made him almost wish that he hadn't run away. Even now, more than a century later, he couldn't decide what was better: basically living forever or living a normal human life with a family who didn't really care about him. Though he had to admit, the rag-tag family he and the other graveyard ghosts had built wasn't so bad. He'd never admit it aloud to any of them, especially to Saïx and Xigbar, but he actually kinda liked them.

Someone must have noticed he was getting lost in memories because he suddenly felt the odd sensation of something solid passing through his non-solid form. Demyx suppressed a shiver as he turned to glare at whoever had thrown the solid object. Xigbar hovered a few feet away, shit-eating grin crinkling the edges of his too yellow eyes. He knew how much Demyx hated what he'd just done.

"You're such an easy target, kiddo." Xigbar floated closer to the still grumpy blond. Xigbar was one of three residential poltergeists. Luckily, he was the only one strong enough to pick up and hurl solid objects long distances. Saïx could at least pick them up, and Xemnas…well, Demyx wasn't quite sure what the silver haired ghost could do.

Demyx had just opened his mouth to throw back a retort when Axel floated up. "Roxas says he's found a newbie." He stopped and crossed his arms, eyes flickering back and forth between Demyx and Xigbar. Axel had this far-fetched theory that Xigbar was always trying to corrupt Demyx, and turn him into a poltergeist. The blond didn't miss the suspicious glance.

He rolled his eyes and hopped off the tombstone. "Xigbar threw a rock at me because I was getting lost in the past," was his only explanation. "So where's the newbie Roxas found?" Demyx asked, grinning widely. In the past, he had deemed himself the sort of unofficial welcome party. And for the last four newbies he had been. Of course, not all of them had gone so well. Luxord had gone and sulked for a week because he figured out that he could no longer gamble, Marluxia had flipped his hair and promptly made his home in the cemetery's flower garden, and Larxene had rolled her eyes, popped the gum she had died with, called Demyx gay, and then floated away. (Demyx had to ask one of the younger ghosts what 'gay' meant now.) Roxas was the only one who actually seemed to enjoy the welcome. He and Demyx had become fast friends.

Content as he was to be the welcome party, Demyx followed Axel away from Xigbar and towards the large oak tree that stood beside the cemetery's main gate. There hovered the ghost of a young, dark haired girl, no older than Roxas. Demyx put on his best grin and floated forward.

"Hi! Welcome to the uh…well, the local cemetery. We're the friendly gang of ghosts that hang out here. I'm Demyx, this is Roxas, and the ghost with the red hair over there is Axel, nice to meet you!" He said all of this without taking a breath, and Axel could tell the girl was getting a little overwhelmed.

Axel floated forward, through Demyx, before stopping in front of him. "Like he said, I'm Axel and that's Roxas. We're dead, and so are you. Welcome to our rag-tag ghost family."

Demyx whined and peeked out from around Axel. "Axxxxxeeeel, being blunt like that might not be the best idea!" At his side, Roxas rolled his eyes.

The dark haired girl just laughed at their antics. "It's okay, I knew I was dead. I heard some of the kids down the road talking about how this cemetery was supposed to be haunted so I decided to check it out…I died about a week ago and I've been wandering around since, trying to find others. Oh, my name is Xion."

"Well you found us!" Demyx busted in before anyone else could. "There are 13 of us here, and it's always nice to have new people join." He rubbed his hands together evilly. "The more of us, the more fun Halloween pranking is."

"Halloween pranking?"

Axel and Roxas rolled their eyes at Xion's question. They knew that Demyx was about to launch into a huge spiel. "Weeeellll…" Demyx began, floating forwards to wrap an arm around Xion's neck, "You see, these kids like to sneak into our graveyard on Halloween night. They want to be scared so we scare them. It's quite fun actually."

A gleam entered Xion's eyes; one they commonly saw in Demyx's when he heard that Halloween was near. "Sounds like fun, but when's Halloween?"

Demyx's grin widened. "It's tonight, actually, and with a fourteenth member, we're gonna have a lot of fun."

The thrill seekers didn't actually start showing up until about midnight, earlier than last year. As it turned out, Xion was just as scary as the rest of them, and she had a talent for making the kids see things that weren't actually there. From their reactions, she was making them see very scary things. All in all, it was the most fun Demyx had had in ages.

That was until a young brown haired kid showed up alone, book clutched in hands hidden by gloves and a long scarf. There was something different about him, compared to all the other kids that stopped by this place, looking for thrills on an otherwise boring night. He stopped just outside the gate of the graveyard, looking around slowly.

All of the ghosts hung back, lurking in the shadows of the tombstones. They didn't trust this person, whoever he was. Demyx knew that all of them could feel it, the aura that hung around this person. After standing and looking around for a while, the kid opened his mouth to speak. "I am Sora, a travelling priest. Come forward, ghosts who haunt this graveyard, and allow me to help you pass on."

Several of the ghosts shrunk back even further, Axel, Demyx, and Roxas among them. Xion, however, stayed put. She seemed to be contemplating the priest's offer. "Xion!" Roxas and Axel both hissed. "Are you considering it? You don't know what lies beyond!" She looked back at them, and took a step backwards.

When no ghosts stepped forward, Sora began to walk around the graveyard, throwing water from a vial and chanting words in a foreign language. Before his eyes, Demyx watched his friends vanish. The weaker ones went first. Xion, then Xaldin, then Zexion, until all that was left were Demyx, Axel, and Roxas. The three poltergeists had fled the instant they realized Sora was a priest.

"I know you're still here!" Sora stopped, standing right in front of the three remaining ghosts. "You need to move on. I know your bodies lie around here somewhere, that's why you're stuck here, isn't it." The priest's eyes flickered between the three ghosts, and suddenly they realized that Sora could see them all, plain as day. "You there," he began, pointing at Roxas, "You're behind the church, buried under barrels and the sacks of flour, abandoned for years…you poor thing."

As they watched, Sora walked over to the spot he was speaking of and began chanting again. Roxas slowly vanished from existence. Watching Roxas fade, and then seeing Axel's distraught face, sparked something in Demyx's heart. Who was this priest to decide which of them got to stay and go? Who was this priest to tell them they had to move on? But he didn't act on it, not until the finger was pointed at him. Axel was still there, but Demyx knew the after the priest was done with him, it would be Axel's turn next.

Truth be told, Demyx didn't want to move on. He had died scared of what lied beyond, and he was still scared. He liked where he was, stuck in this cemetery with just his ghost family. But now his family was gone, cast into whatever oblivion waited beyond this world. He would never see them again. Stepping forward, he steeled himself for what he was going to do. "Why do you get to tell me to move on? I've been here for a long time; I've never caused any trouble besides a couple pranks on Halloween night."

The priest ignored him, eyes searching for something he could seem to find. He looked back at Demyx and locked eyes with the blond. "I can't sense where you're buried. Tell me where you're buried so I can help you pass on."

"I don't know." Demyx was lying, and he hoped the quiver in his voice didn't give him away. Years after his death, and years before the cemetery was set up here, the tree and the ground had swallowed his bones. Even now, he could feel the pulse of the tree roots through his body, the roots that had wound their way through his ribs, into his skull, and encased his legs. He knew why the priest couldn't find where he was buried. The tree had become part of him, and there was no way he was leaving now, not when he knew that tree could live for ages longer.

"Then I'll move onto the redhead and come back to you." Sora turned to Axel, eyes searching the red head. "You're buried in a grave here, but it's not your grave." The priest walked to a grave Demyx knew Axel frequented. He had always assumed that it was someone the red head had known in life. The priest pulled out the vial of water and Demyx knew what was coming next. He was not going to lose the last friend he had left.

"STOP!" Demyx floated forward, out of the shadow of the tombstones and into the moonlight. "Please stop. Aren't you satisfied yet? You helped almost my entire family pass on, isn't that enough? They were the last thing I had left, and now they're gone." He was shaking, ghostly tears rolling down his cheeks. "You're not going to take Axel too." Demyx's voice steadily rose until his last word was shouted. Something in him shifted, and the world went fuzzy before clearing up again.

Behind him, he could sense Axel, and the five tombstones he was levitating off the ground. He knew that his eyes, once a blue as bright as the sea, would now be glowing a sickly yellow. "Leave."

But the priest didn't even cower. "I knew there was something strange about this graveyard." Sora opened the book his hand and began flipping through it. "I was sensing poltergeists."

Demyx growled lowly. This wasn't him, and he knew it, but he wanted this human gone and soon. If the only way to do that was to kill him, so be it. "I said LEAVE!" One of the tombstones Demyx had been holding was dropped on the ground behind the priest. Axel muttered something, and floated forward to put a hand on Demyx's shoulder.

"Stop this, Demyx, before you kill him."

The blond heard, but did not acknowledge him. Something in him had broken, and years of frustration and the injustice of tonight, of losing almost his entire family in the course of an hour, clouded everything else. This was what happened when ghosts reached the breaking point. They became poltergeists, and after that, there was no turning back.

Sora had stopped flipping; evidentially he had found the page he was looking for. He had just opened his mouth to speak when all the tombstones Demyx had been holding came crashing down in a pile. The blond was not going to let the priest take his last family member from him. Slowly, the reality of what he'd done came back to him.

Behind him, he heard Axel gasp. Demyx turned to look at him, but Axel could tell his friend still wasn't there. Demyx would never be quite the same again. They stared at each other for a while in a muffled silence. Neither of them spoke, nor did the forest behind him. Xigbar was the only poltergeists to return, and when he did he surveyed the scene once before breaking out in a huge grin.

"Didn't know you had it in ya, kiddo."

Demyx's head snapped up and sickly yellow eyes met sickly yellow eyes. If Demyx had been human, he would've been sick upon realizing he was now what Xigbar was. "I'm not…I don't…I didn't mean to." His eyes widened, and tears threatened to fall from his eyes.

"You might not've meant to, but you did." Xigbar still had that grin on his face, the one that Demyx hated. The anger and frustration from earlier flared back up.

"Are you proud now? Huh? Was Axel right this entire time? About you trying to corrupt me? Or do you just get some sick glee in seeing me in pain?" The tombstones were rattling louder and louder in accordance with Demyx's rising voice. "If you don't leave I'll drop these stones on you next." A voice within him whispered that he could make it hurt.

Xigbar didn't seem to take the hint. "You never were the smartest kiddo. I'm a ghost, just like you. All those stones will do is go straight through me."

The stones were in the air now, revealing the flattened body of Sora underneath. "Shut up!" His eyes were glowing again, and the stones flew forward, slamming into Xigbar. Demyx didn't know what was different now, but instead of the stones going through him, the stones seemed to actually hit Xigbar, pinning him to the ground. All the stones were on Xigbar now, except for one. Walking over, Demyx had the same grin on his face that Xigbar used to love when he saw the look of horror on the other poltergeists was giving him. "I warned you." And then the last stone was dropped, covering Xigbar's face.

Now he had killed two people, one of them being someone he used to consider a friend. The only thing that brought him back to reality was Axel's hand floating just above his shoulder. "Demyx, stop now please." Demyx looked back at his friend, recognizing the look on the red head's face. It was the look of someone who had also killed, and suddenly Demyx knew that Axel had killed people too. Oddly enough, it made him feel better.

There was silence for a while, and then Demyx spoke. "I killed them Axel." He wasn't looking at the red head, but at the sun rising over the tree tops.

"Yes, you did." In the light of the rising sun, Demyx could see a shadow at the gate to the cemetery. "And look," Axel spoke again, having noticed what Demyx noticed. "There's Sora." The grin on Demyx's face would've made Xigbar proud.


End file.
